Music sung in a language foreign to the listener presents many problems. Even if the listener is fluent in the language, the poetic expression is often archaic and difficult to understand. As a result, the listener loses the dramatic and artistic essence of the piece.
Both the appreciation and singing of an operatic composition pose a unique problem to the student of opera and the singer. The singer must sing with expression and that expression must be keyed to the meaning of the words sung. At the same time, word separation, phrasing, individual artistic expression and extemporaneous and planned improvisation are often essential parts of a high quality delivery in the context of the performance, facial expressions, delivery to other characters, and audience reaction. These become elements particularly crucial when the performer is a non-native speaker of the language of performance and the listener is a native or fluent speaker or vice versa.
Even the relatively simple case of musical and lyrical instruction in the student's native language is frequently accomplished by reading books and/or receiving personalized assistance from instructors. There are literally hundreds of books on the market for teaching a variety of different musical instruments and styles. There are also many instructors having expertise in the musical field who are willing to import their knowledge for a fee.
Books generally instruct a student from a technical rather than practical perspective, such that the technique of playing an instrument or vocalizing a song properly are taught and are then applied by the student. Recordings are sometimes included with a book so as to familiarize the student with the correct manner in which the composition should be performed.
Similar to musical instruction, foreign language instruction is often received from books and personal instruction. Books often teach the technically correct manner of translation and grammar while supplemental recordings and/or instructors provide stylistic instruction as to pronunciation and accent of the foreign language. Typically, books are more easily understood by supplementing the same with recordings and/or instruction so as to allow the student to integrate the technical and stylistic aspects of the language, thereby learning the language and its usage.
However, the above-mentioned techniques are inadequate or impractical when a listener who wishes to appreciate a work or even a performer, such as a beginning student opera singer or actor, wishes to learn a foreign language opera or literary piece, without fluently learning the language.
For audience members and beginning student performers, the purpose of learning the foreign language composition, musical or literary, lies in performance and not retained knowledge of the foreign language, thereby making the traditional techniques of learning a foreign language substantially unneccessary for the performer's or audience member's goals and thus inefficient. The problem with learning a foreign opera or the like in a manner consistent with the goals of performers arises in the fact that appreciating or delivering a foreign language composition is known to be achievable and most successful when a person is familiar with the meaning of the language. Therefore, some learning is required but has been previously unobtainable without intensive study via the above techniques.